Aurora: About member Ranks and ranking formulas
Most online communities use a series of ranks to recognize and reward community members. When they first join a community, members typically receive a “newbie” rank. As members spend time creating and engaging with content in the community, they can advance in rank. Rank titles are visible on community member’s profiles as well as the Account menu. The criteria required for achieving ranks, however, are not visible to non-admins. About Ranks About ranking formulas About Ranks A rank is essentially the set of criteria a member must meet and the rewards the member receives as a result. The criteria for a rank typically measure a member's activity in the community over time. For higher ranks, you may want to include criteria that measure the quality of community contributions in the form of number of solutions accepted or average ratings. The rewards for a rank tend to be increased recognition in the form of special icons or styling for the member’s username and access to privileges that are otherwise restricted. Ranks should be organized in order of how difficult they are to achieve. The most difficult ranks to achieve should be displayed at the top of the ranking structure on the Ranks page and have lower numbers (shown to the left of the rank) associated with them. The higher the rank level number is, the easier that rank is to achieve and the lower it is shown in the ranking structure. For instance, 0 is the lowest rank level number in your ranking structure, but it is the hardest rank to achieve. When creating your ranks, keep this hierarchy in mind—that is, don’t put ranks in a random order or organize them alphabetically. If you don’t organize them by difficulty of achievement, they will not be awarded appropriately across the community. Ranks are calculated when a member signs in to the community or shortly after (about 15 minutes) the member has met the criteria for the rank. Note: A member can hold only one rank at a time. The most common events that affect a member's rank are: Number of Tags applied to content Registration age Minutes online Number of sign-ins Number of page views Number of posts created Accepted Solutions granted Likes received Likes given Role required (e.g., the “Moderator” role is required for the “Moderator” rank) You can also create your own ranking formula, which can include a lot more. When you first launch your community, you have a set of default ranks already created. However, you may want to add more lower-level ranks to enable members to progress more quickly and get instant reinforcement. As your community matures, you may want to add higher-level ranks that are more difficult to achieve. About ranking formulas A ranking formula is a Boolean expression composed of values for a subset of the member metrics in the system plus a variety of operators (such as and, or, not, less than, more than). If the Boolean expression equals true (this means the member meets the criteria), the member receives the rank. The operator you choose makes a big difference in the results produced by a formula. For example, you might require members to have more than 200 page views and no fewer than 20 posts. Or, you might require members to have at least 20 posts or more than 200 page views. In the first example, the member must meet both criteria before attaining the rank. In the second example, the member can achieve the rank by meeting either criterion. When you define a rank using the predefined metrics, we add an implicit “AND,” which means that members must meet all of the criteria before receiving the rank (this is the most common way to combine multiple criteria). Related topics: Create a rank Create a ranking formula About default community ranks
